Charles Huang, co-founder of Green Throttle Games

Green Throttle Games is coming out of stealth today with an idea for turning mobile devices into game consoles.

The Santa Clara, Calif., company was founded by Guitar Hero co-creator Charles Huang, along with Matt Crowley and Karl Townsend, who both have backgrounds in mobile.

“Mobile gaming is exploding, and new smart devices are becoming powerful alternatives to traditional consoles,” Huang said in a release. “We just need a simple and fun way for people to play games both on the go, and on the couch.”

Rather than buy a separate gaming device for the TV, like an Xbox or PlayStation, the company wants to enable gamers to play mobile games on the biggest screen in the house using their mobile phone or tablet. The Green Throttle Games gaming system allows a consumer to plug an Android phone or tablet into the TV using an adapter. An analog game controller connects wirelessly to the phone, allowing a person to play on the TV without any standalone hardware.

It’s similar to what some game companies have been trying to do with iPhones becoming the controller when connected to the TV via a cable.

Along with Green Throttle’s launch, the company is starting to pitch developers on making games for its system, ahead of the controller going on sale early next year. Developers can buy a kit today, including one of the company’s controllers, to start developing games. So far, it has signed up several developers, including nWay, Free Range Games, Mercenary and Monstrous. The company also will be developing games on its own. To start, Green Throttle will be compatible with Google Nexus 4, the HTC One X, Samsung Galaxy S II, S III and Galaxy Note, and the Nexus 7 and Nexus 10.

In this drop-and-dunk test, SquareTrade’s “Drop Bot” holds each device with a mechanical arm about four feet above the ground and then drops the tablets on their corners and displays.

Afterward, each tablet is submerged in a bucket of water for 10 seconds.

The iPad mini held up surprisingly well. What happened to the third-generation iPad, though, might surprise you:

The 7-inch tablet has created a big buzz this year with its low starting price of $199, but both Google and Asustek have been cagey about revealing actual sales figures.

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Wall Street seems to think so. Apple’s shares slipped Tuesday following the mini’s unveiling and the announcement that Apple hadn’t hit the $299 price point that many had hoped for, let alone the $249 “barn burner” that some analysts at predicted. To those folks, the iPad mini may not be cheap enough to resonate with price-sensitive users looking for tablets at the market’s lower end.

But it will almost certainly resonate with others looking for a smaller, best-in-class tablet. And, honestly, when has Apple ever played at the bottom of the pricing barrel? The company’s M.O. has always been to build premium products that command premium prices and offer great margins. As Mike McGuire, research vice president at Gartner, told AllThingsD, “Apple didn’t need to come down to $200; they’ve never done products to hit competitors’ price points.”

And they’re obviously not going to start now. Because they don’t need to. Apple has sold 100 million iPads since it first launched the device two-and-a-half years ago. How did it manage to do that? Apple CEO Tim Cook answered that very question Tuesday: “Why is iPad so successful?” he asked. “Well, there’s a simple explanation. People love their iPads.”

A pat answer, I suppose. But apt. Because that’s what Apple is counting on as it rolls out the iPad mini at a price point well above that of the smaller tablets against which it will compete. Consumers already love the iPad value proposition: Compelling design, high-quality hardware and services, and a massive apps ecosystem. “Others have tried to make tablets smaller than the iPad, and they have failed miserably,” Apple marketing VP Phil Schiller said Tuesday. “Competitors are making compromises with their products. We don’t.”

And by offering iPad’s value proposition in a smaller form factor with a lower price, Apple is very likely dramatically expanding the iPad’s addressable market. And it may make life for low-end tablet makers like Amazon and Google a little bit more difficult in the process. There’s no question that the market opportunity Amazon and Google seized early with the Kindle Fire and Nexus 7 will begin to decline in size on Nov. 2 when the iPad mini ships.

“IPad mini will likely pull sales from other 7- and 8-inch tablets for consumers looking for a cheaper iPad but not the cheapest tablet or where form factor was a key purchase factor,” Gartner analyst Michael Gartenberg told AllThingsD. “Apple has never made a race to the bottom in pricing as part of their strategy, leaving the lowest price (and lowest margin) sectors for players in that space to battle each other.”

Said J.P. Morgan analyst Mark Moskowitz, “Should Amazon and Google be worried? Yes, they should be worried.”

So, how will the mini sell?

Well, according to the analysts I’ve spoken with. “Though we thought a sub-$300 price would be optimal, the iPad mini’s specs and app ecosystem should be able to command a premium, while also enabling Apple to generate a higher margin,” Baird analyst Will Power told AllThingsD. “We still expect strong sales, even at $329.”

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Thankfully, I was flying Virgin America, which has Wi-Fi on every flight. So, like many people, I was tuned into various liveblogs (including, of course, our own).

Being up here gives a little distance and perspective. So, pardon the pun, here’s my 30,000-foot take on what Apple announced, and how it fits in with some other things going on in the industry.

The iPad mini was the expected star of the show, and it arrived as the final product, though with few surprises. Apple kept the same aspect ratio and pixel count as the iPad 2, so the mini is all set to run any iPad-optimized apps.

Apple isn’t competing aggressively on price — selling the Wi-Fi-only model for $329, well above tablets such as the Kindle Fire HD and Nexus 7 (not to mention a host of other small Android slates). Still, Apple did lower the bar slightly, with the mini selling for $70 less than the cheapest full-size iPad 2.

Apple also introduced an updated fourth-generation iPad that should upset some who thought “the new iPad” wouldn’t become “the old iPad” quite so fast. For all other buyers, they are just getting more bang for the buck — along with the new Lightning connector. That’s a good thing for the future, probably, but, as with the iPhone, it’s a pain if you have lots of existing iPeripherals.

On the desktop Mac side of things, Apple revamped its two main models — the iMac and Mac mini. However, Apple plays in only in a couple segments of the desktop market. For those looking for an all-in-one, the iMac got thinner and more powerful, employing a hybrid drive that combines flash and hard-drive storage.

Here, the iMac will find itself up against a host of touchscreen Windows 8 all-in-ones. Apple continues to make the case that touch is best served on tablets, and that when it comes to the desktop, a nice trackpad will do the trick. Acer, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Lenovo and everyone else will be making a different case, as they add touch to lots of their models — particularly tablets, all-in-ones and convertibles.

As for laptops, Apple added one new model to its lineup, introducing a 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display, offering those who want the high-end screen in a more compact and slightly less pricey machine. As with the 15-incher, choosing the Retina display gets you a thinner, lighter laptop, but at the expense of an optical drive and a bigger hit to the wallet.

Apple didn’t break a ton of new ground on Tuesday, but what it did was expand its reach, covering a larger part of the markets in which it already competes. Plus, Apple ensured that it will have some brand-new products in stores just as Microsoft and PC makers begin their massive Windows 8 push. Google is also expected to update its Nexus lineup, having scheduled an event for Oct. 29 in New York. (Android chief Andy Rubin will be at D: Dive Into Mobile later that day.)

Well, it’s about time to fasten seat belts and turn off electronic devices. That gives me just enough time to ponder which devices might be finding their way onto this year’s holiday shopping list.

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Render by Martin Hajek

Will Apple match or undercut the price of the smaller tablets already on the market? Or will it price the so-called iPad mini as it sees fit, paying little mind to its competitors?

Consensus on the Street seems to be the latter, with a number of analysts predicting the entry-level mini — or whatever Apple chooses to call it — pricing out somewhere between $299 and $349.

“We do not believe Apple needs to price as low as $199 to match Google’s Nexus 7 and Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD,” Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu theorizes. “[Rather, we] believe a price point of $299 or $349 makes sense with its entry-level iPod touch starting at $199 and iPad 2 at $399. The key question is whether Apple decides to price in-line with its margin model or does it get aggressive to ‘go for the kill’ against competitors. Regardless, we continue to believe iPad mini is the competition’s worse nightmare.”

So, $299 to $349. Or perhaps somewhere in the middle — $329, as 9to5Mac recently reported. That might seem a bit pricey for a device many view as targeting the Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire HD, but that’s almost certainly not how Apple views it.

The iPad mini isn’t intended as a budget device for consumers willing to spend only a few hundred dollars on a tablet. It’s a device intended for consumers looking for an iPad with a smaller form factor. And those folks are willing to pay a premium, as Apple’s iPad sales to date have proven.

Martin Hajek

Chatter from Apple’s overseas supply chain indicates that the company has not been cutting corners in its efforts to keep the iPad’s diminutive sibling price-competitive with what will surely be its two greatest rivals in the seven-inch tablet space, Google’s Nexus 7 and Amazon’s Kindle Fire. Apple’s “we just want to make great products” ethos will be as evident in the iPad mini as it is in all the company’s hardware.

Topeka analyst Brian White, who’s been travelling around Taipei talking to component suppliers, says the mini — or whatever Apple chooses to call it — may even be slicker than the new iPad.

“Apple did not skimp on the aesthetics of the much anticipated ‘iPad Mini,’” White says. “In fact, we believe the ‘iPad Mini’ could outshine the new iPad in terms of how the device feels in a consumer’s hands.”

Not much to go on, I realize. But White’s supply chain sources have been solid in the past, and here at AllThingsD we too have been hearing promising things about the iPad mini’s design, which sources say demands a lot of the companies manufacturing it. This is something White has been hearing, as well, and he thinks it could make the device hard to come by initially. “The new ‘iPad Mini’ is more challenging to produce than prior iPad iterations,” he says. “We believe supply will initially be constrained.”

And in another dispatch from the supply chain, The Wall Street Journal reports that some of Apple’s Asian component partners say they have received orders to make more than 10 million units of the smaller tablets in the fourth quarter, roughly double the number of Kindle Fire’s ordered for the quarter.

(Image courtesy of Martin Hajek)

Walmart has stopped selling all of Amazon’s hardware, a move it chalks up to its “merchandising strategy.”

Reuters first reported the news. Here’s the statement from Walmart PR (no comment from Amazon):

Recently, Walmart Stores, Inc. made a business decision to not carry current Amazon products beyond our purchase commitments and existing inventory.

Our customers trust us to provide a broad assortment of products at everyday low prices, and we approach every merchandising decision through this lens.

We will continue to offer our customers a broad assortment of tablets, eReaders and accessories at a variety of great price points. This decision is consistent with our overall merchandising strategy.

So what does that really mean?

Here are two potential theories, which aren’t mutually exclusive:

This is about price: Walmart can’t get the margins it wants from Amazon.

This is about more than price: Walmart sells a lot of books, music and video from its stores, and that may lead to a conflict with Amazon, which has made no bones about the fact that it views its hardware as retail outlets for everything else it sells, like books, music and video.

The only problem with both of those theories is that you could apply some or all of them to all of Walmart’s other hardware suppliers. The retailer continues to sell tablets from Apple, Google and Barnes & Noble, all of which drive hard bargains themselves, and all of which compete with Walmart for media sales, too.

A year ago, Google shares were trading at about $480. Today, they closed at $727.50, up more than 9 percent, to reach another 52-week high. And, given the company’s last earnings report — which was better than expected — and the recent introductions of new Android handsets from Samsung and Motorola, they’re likely to move higher still in the weeks ahead.

Scott Kessler at S&P Capital IQ attributes a lot of the recent momentum behind Google’s stock to the company’s second-quarter earnings. “I think there was some investor concern ahead of Google’s last quarterly report,” Kessler told AllThingsD. “But they turned in a solid quarter, and that provided the market with a lot of reassurance. Look at the stock now; it’s up about 25 percent for the past three months.”

Add to that the warm welcome given to the company’s new Nexus 7 tablet, and the company’s recent rise isn’t all that difficult to understand. Said Kessler, “They’ve had some strong product launches. The Nexus 7 is doing well.”

And despite some product missteps and the legal issues burgeoning around Android, Google remains a search advertising juggernaut. With PC search revenue continuing to produce steady cash flow and the company well-positioned to swallow a big chunk of mobile advertising revenue as well, there’s ample reason for the market’s optimism.

As Nikesh Arora, Google’s chief business officer, said during the company’s last earnings call, “The good news is, we’re seeing phenomenal growth in mobile queries across the board. Mobile is, right now, where search was in 1999.”